I bought in on the hype and went to iTunes to get The Daily, the new ipad newspaper from News Corp. Look what I got in response:
Groan. So I click on Change Store and it wants me to log in and then comes the message than I can only buy from the Australian store.
I would have thought that any organisation wanting maximum impact from a product like The Daily would understand that when it comes to digital content, the world is borderless. News Ltd newspapers here are reporting that they do not know when the daily will be available here.
Dumb.
Why am I not suprised? News Ltd has consistently shown they have alarmingly little understanding of the digital market and medium. From poor tablet apps to failed pay wall experiments they just don’t seem to ‘get’ the digital concept.
I’ve downloaded The Daily app and I’m afraid you arent missing out on anything. While it certainly looks nice (except for the grainy thumbnails) it isnt the easiest app to navigate – its doesn’t have the natural feel of an app like Pulse. Navigation is horizontal only and just feels stunted. When you go into read an article it still has some of that content-created-for-print-trying-to-be-digital feel. Oh, and it seems to have lag issues when loading articles – and I’m saying that as someone using an ADSL2+ connection.
One thing I will note is that advertisements placed in amongst content are noticeable (in a good way that isn’t too intrusive). They fit in with the app rather than looking out of place revenue makers. I feel like I WANT to click on the ads.
Offbeat but why no comment on stong sales for newspapers keeping News in profit, and paying for this experiment.
Fred I get where you are coming from.
What we need to do is to use our current newspaper and magazine traffic to leverage our evolving business model.